Hello I'm Mike Manley, welcome to my studio Blog. I am veteran comic and animation artist and I created and edit Draw! Magazine. This blog is a chronicle of what's happening in my studio. Follow my process and path as an painter, cartoonist and teacher and find out how they inform and enrich each other!

Monday, February 26, 2007

Here is the final Frog still life. I won't say it's done, but I've stopped on it. I feel I can stop here for fear of going too far in tickling it up and them over doing it, throwing it out of balance.I may try one more painting for the portfolio for PAFA, I don't know if I'll have time or not, or even if I use Liquin, if it will dry in time.

I continue to work on drawings and paintings for my PAFA portfolio thisweekend. I decided to bag the NYC con and spend the time on my work. Ikinda' kick myself for being down so close to the wire on this, butthat's always the way with commercial work, it eats up just about allyour time.

This drawing is from a photo I took when I went toget my Jeep back in Jan when it was stolen. My brother Dave drove us upinto the north part of Philly, which is colorful and dicey in spots, amix of urban blight, new immigrant population and poor inner city neighborhoods. As we drove along I snapped pics, I saw so many people I thought it would be fascinating to paint and draw. At a stoplight this guy was pacing back and forthwith a really anxious, angry look on his face, he saw I had a cameraand I had him in the shot and tried to get him unawares by angling theflip out screen 90 degrees to him, but he noticed I was snapping himand got mad. There was that Philly tension. I snapped two shots before he walked off. the expressionon his face was like" What, what the F**K, Mother *&^^$#! Maybe hewas wanted for a crime, maybe he was hiding out, maybe he just didn'tlike taking his picture.

Anyway, it would have been great todraw him from life, but I don't think he would have been a cooperativemodel. I've been looking and studying lot at drawings by variousAmerican artists like both Andrew and Jamie Wyeth as well as Sargent,hopper, and Dega. 8B pencil on Charcoal paper.

Friday, February 23, 2007

Here are a bunch of drawings from tonight's Free Figure Drawing that Echo runs at PAFA in the cast hall of the Historic landmark building and my Monday Anatomy class. She thought it would be fun to get students to show up and draw each other instead of always using the models, it also was a chance to draw the clothed figure since most figure drawing is the nude modle. So far the attendance has been so-so, seems some people are not into drawing the clothed figure. The first two drawings are foreshortning/perspective exercises in class where the model was laying on a table in a steep perspective. There are also some 10 second getsure drawings done at my Anatomy CE class on Mondays. Joe, my teacher has really been pushing me to loosen up and all the drawings this week are much, much looser.

All the poses posted are 5 minute, 10 second and the last 10 minutes. I'm pushing making different types of lines,, lost edges and deciding what to leave out. The complete opposite of comic drawing where the thing is to include it all....

Wednesday, February 14, 2007

Here is the second pass at the Apples still life I'm doing as part of my PAFA portfolio. I think The green apple is kicking my ass! I tickled up the BG a bit more to help with the values. I have one more pass at it, I'll do that in another day or so as I have crushing Kryptonian deadlines this week. Since it is a snow day here I figured I'd pick at it again this AM.

This is a little out of focus and has some glare too, I'll post the finish.

Thursday, February 08, 2007

While digging through the Manley Archives (my attic) I came across this copy of the Michigan Cinema Guide I did way, way long ago. I did this I think in the late summer or fall of 1984, I was just 23 years old. I remember having a fit with my airbrush which i used on parts of my background and also scrambleing to ge ref for the Golden Gate Bridge as this was somewhat of a rush job, and there was no internet then. If I remember there was a new Dirty harry movie coming out at the time. I was paid a whopping $300 bucks, which was a lot to me back then, the drag was they kept my original.I was pretty darn excited to do it at the time tough.

Monday, February 05, 2007

Both of these are about 15-20 second gesture drawings done as warm-ups.The last pose which I redrew since the first version was just so stiff.

To help me lossen up on my drawings this week the teacher Joe had me draw with an improvised drawing untensil, a piece of vine charcoal tapped to the end of a pencil, essentially giving me a charcoal wand. This was to enforce me being loose and drawing out of my comfort zone. It worked, and while proportions got a bit funky, I definitely go looser. I was bebating not going this week as i am so swamped with work, but I am glad I did.

Thursday, February 01, 2007

Yesterday when I returned home after a very, very long day of teaching at DCAD, hanging the Student Show and shuttling back into the city to grab Echo from PAFA, I had a message on my answering machine from the Upper Darby Police saying that my jeep had been recoveredin Philly and giving me the contact numbers to the Philly police andthe towing yard where the jeep was. It was too late to do anythingabout it then, so I hit the sack. I was bone tired from a heavy day andas I drifted off to sleep I wondered if the car would be totallytrashed, even drivable, how deep thedicking I might get would be to my wallet.

ThePolice recovery unit is way up in a very old part of the city, thisold, mostly abandoned industrial part of the city would really get mypal BillWray all hot under the collar to paint. the neighborhoods arerough with a real mixture of old city people and new immigrants, yousee Arab,Portorican ,chinese, black, Dominican business all right next to each other.This area of the city really declined, even depopulated in the early part of the lastcentury as the industries moved away of went out of the country or business. Lots of great old buildings here. I love seeing the weird murals and the hand lettered signs!

Thismorning I pulled my sack of potatoes body out of bed and called thepolice as I brewed some strong coffee. They said the car was drivablebut that the ignition was damaged as well as the drivers seat. Theytold me where I had to go and the steps to get the jeep back. I havenever had a car stolen before, and not having one for over a week wasreally ahassle,it really made me think about how dependant we are on our cars, howspread out our lives can become because of this. Echo goes to school inPhilly, she could catch the El down to 15th and walk a few blocks over to school. It would be a huge hassle as she has wet canvases to carry and tackle boxes, portfolios etc. She's look like a pack animal and it would just endup with something getting busted. The trip home through West Phillyin the evening would not be that safe. I teach in Wilmington, 30+ miles away. I could catch the El to 30Thstreet and then Amtrak to Wilmington and walk the 6-8 blocks to school.It would be expensive and take 2hours or at least 90 minutes each way.manypeople routinely do this or even worse commutes every day adding to the horrible rush hours and stressed lives.

Theother thing you have to deal with is the fact that when your car isstolen the recovery is part of this huge bureaucracy, you have twopolice departments, towing companies etc. A lot of things topotentially dick you hard! Now the car was found on Monday, but I gothe call Tuesday. The place you have to go to get the police to giveyou a release for the car is way up in the northern part of the city,the towtard is way way down in the southwest part of the city. Of course they are! You have to take proof of insurence and your drivers liscense to the police, then they give you the release and give you driving directions to Delaware valley towing. Luckily my brother davecould shuttle me around today or I would have been paying 70 buck I betin cab fares. The towing company also only takes cash! Of course theyneglected to say this on the phone...

So I get the release and drive back into and through Philly to PassyunkAve where the towing company is. the thing that sucks about getting yercar stolen is it gets towed which costs you $100, then $11 a day forstorage. So I spent $134 dollars to get my car back. The ignition waspunched out, so that will have to be replaced, I suppose I got offeasy. The towing place being cash only and having 5-6 guys theresmelled like a way to do a lot of under the table dealings. I felt likeit was a place that tonySopranno would be sitting behind the officedoor. One of the guys there showed me how to use the screwdriver tostart my car, so now I know what to do if I need to steal a car myself.He said his jeep had also been stolen numerous times.

The bestnews is that Echo's sketchbooks and school stuff was still in the car,guess the thief wasn't an art fan. Luckily a check book I left in theglove box also wasn't taken or used. Maybe the lazy SOB just wanted todrive home, not take the bus. I don't know how much it will cost to fixthe ignition but I'm sure i will not escape this whole thing for lessthan 300-400 bucks, cheaper than getting a new car, but still...

Inow have my club on my steering wheel as the jeeps parked in thedriveway and now I guess I'll have to really consider getting fullcoverage now in case the same Fuckhead decides to take it again.

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